Hacktastico!

Wow.

I’m pretty sure that sentiment is shared by everyone who attended the 2009 FRC Kickoff event yesterday. The new challenge, Lunacy, looks like it will put both the veterans and newcomers on even footing because it’s like nothing FIRST has done before.

The challenge this year is to navigate the surface of a simulated crator on the moon and fill the opposing alliance’s robots with special ball-like objects. The game will be extra-tricky because the surface of the playing field is a slippery plastic and every robot is required to use special wheels that when coupled with the plastic floor have a coefficient of friction of 0.05 (static) and 0.04 (dynamic). This looks to be a great engineering challenge.

I may post more about this year’s FRC event as the season progresses. To follow a team as the season wears on, visit OregonCityRobotics.com For more information about FIRST, visit usfirst.org

This is kind of short notice but I’ve decided that I’m going to live-blog the FIRST FRC Kickoff, Saturday, January 3rd. I will be bringing you live coverage of the Portland Metro kickoff event as this year’s challenge is unveiled.

For those who don’t know, FIRST is an organization devoted to getting kids interested in science technology, engineering, and math. To do this, FIRST has turned learning into a sport with robotics. FRC is the high-school level robotics competition that I participated in during my senior year of high school.

Each year, teams are given six weeks to design, build, and program a robot that competes with other robots in a specific challenge. The challenge is announced on the first Saturday of each year in a satellite broadcast shown worldwide during the kickoff event.